Starting over…sort of.

It is Monday, September 7, 2015. The day before traditional school starts. I’ve been in for a month. But it doesn’t feel like it.

I’ve been out multiple times a week of that month for training for our newly_purchased textbooks. It probably should have been done over the summer, but my colleagues in the district voted that down. I didn’t, FWIW. So it had to be after school started. I didn’t go to the last two. On purpose.

Was I being unprofessional? Undoubtedly. Will I figure it out on my own? Also undoubtedly.

I am a month into school, and I don’t know half of my students’ names (since I’m never there to see them, and we don’t get pictures until the middle of the September).

I consider that even more unprofessional.

Now I feel like all I’ve done in the blog today is whine.

Here’s the plan:

I gave them homework over the long weekend to thank someone who puts in work for them in honor of the holiday. They will have to tell me who they thanked.

My freshmen Math I classes will have to do an interleaved quiz about the distributive property, solving basic equations, and figuring out how long it will take to get somewhere using unit rates. Then they’ll get to find out how to simplify radicals.

My AP Statisticians finished Study Design on Friday. They will get into data exploration next.

My non-AP Statisticians will get to start comparing two proportions. And they’ll meet the Ho.

Now that I’ve done planning, I feel better. I’m way more excited about this. I have to admit: this month has made me very discouraged for the year.